DoubleSixx

Intel is expected to introduce a 6-core processor designed to crunch through the most 3D-intensive games in the coming weeks.

The first glimpses of the chip running 3D-intensive games such as Napoleon: Total War could happen at the 2010 Game Developer’s Conference next week, according to industry sources. The official roll-out of Intel’s 6-core “Westmere” processors, however, is expected later this month.

The Core i7-980X is distinguished primarily by being Intel’s first 6-core “Extreme Edition” processor based on the chipmaker’s cutting-edge 32-nanometer process technology. Generally, the smaller the manufacturing process, the more circuitry can be packed onto the chip, increasing performance. Most Intel processors still use “fatter” 45-nanometer technology.

Like other Core i series processors, it features Hyper-Threading, which can double the number of tasks–or threads–a processor can execute. So, a 6-core processor can handle 12 threads. This technology is not offered on prior-generation Core 2 chips.

Resellers–which have posted preliminary pricing–list the processor at just over $1,000 and show it running at 3.33GHz and packing 12MB of built-in cache memory. With an expected price of around $1,000, game boxes using the chip will not be cheap.

PC makers that typically offer high-end gaming boxes include Falcon Northwest, Velocity Micro, and Dell’s Alienware unit.

Source :

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10463931-64.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Sony announced it was working on a new motion controller at E3 last June in Los Angeles.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Sony announced late Wednesday night from the Tokyo Game Show that it plans to release a new motion-sensitive controller for its PlayStation 3 video game console sometime during spring of 2010. The news came just hours after Nintendo’s own announcement that it was cutting the price of its Wii console from $250 to $200.

The company originally announced that it was working on a new controller at E3 last June. That news seemed, at the time, to indicate that Sony was aiming at taking on the Nintendo Wii and its intuitive Wii-mote. Microsoft, too, unveiled a hot new controller system, code-named Natal, but revealed no substantial details about how it would be used, what it would cost or when it would be available.

As for Sony, it didn’t say last June when its new device would hit the market. So Wednesday night’s announcement marks the first time it has given any specificity about the date.

“The newly announced Motion Controller is equipped with two motion sensors, three axes gyroscope and three axes accelerometer that can detect the controller’s angle and movement held in the user’s hand,” Sony said in a release. “Together with the PlayStation Eye camera for PS3 which can accurately track the absolute position of the controller, the controller can detect the natural and intuitive movement of the hand and reflect the precise movement on to the game.”

Earlier Wednesday evening, Nintendo said it was slashing the price of the Wii from $250 to $200. Although both announcements were made during the Tokyo Game Show, the timing is notable given that with Sony’s announcement, PS3 users and fans now have a better sense of when their favorite console will take on some additional Wii-like functionality. Nintendo may well have decided it couldn’t waste any time in making its own move to protect its console.

Source :

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10360590-52.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

I know there are some people who have not slept for fear that Google had finally committed itself to some alien culture.

Well, some outerworldly alien culture. Well, some outerworldly alien culture where all beings were green and no one used phrases like “market segmentation” and “41 shades of blue.”

You see, a mysterious doodle appeared on the Google home page. It showed an alien spacecraft making off with the second “O” in the word “Google.”

Were we really expected to merely gogle now? Didn’t that sound uncomfortably close to ogling?

Though there were no references to the Church of Scientology, Google’s first pronouncement on the subject did not quell the concern.

The questionably benign company declared: “We consider the second ‘o’ critical to user recognition of our brand and pronunciation of our name. We are actively looking into the mysterious tweet that has appeared on the Google twitter stream and the disappearance of the ‘o’ on the Google home page. We hope to have an update in the coming weeks.”

The world continued experiencing the occasional shudder, until Google’s Twitter page produced this revelatory tweet on Friday: “1.12.12 25.15.21.18 15 1.18.5 2.5.12.15.14.7 20.15 21.19.”

Well, it was revelatory to those who think in a certain way, one to which I can only aspire.

“Yes, of course,” those who think that way said to themselves, while simultaneously slapping their heads with a fly-swatter. “It’s a reference to that wonderful Japanese video game of the 1980s, Zero Wing.”

Now, look, I’ve heard of Vera Wang. But somehow Zero Wing passed me by, though I think it would be an excellent name for a fashion designer.

However, those on the inside (of the spacecraft) tell me that Zero Wing is terribly cool and features extremely characteristic English translations.

Apparently, Cats, a villain even greater than the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, makes this declaration at the beginning of Zero Wing: “How are you gentlemen. All your base are belong to us.”

Well, when you take all those numbers in the Google tweet and turn them into the corresponding letters of the alphabet, you get: “All your O are belong to us.”

Why would some Googlies want to feature Zero Wing now? Well, it’s the game’s 20th anniversary.

So there. The problem is solved. The world is safe. Google has not been taken over by aliens.

Or can we really be sure of that?

Source :

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10345951-71.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

I met a perfectly lovely young woman this weekend who told me that when she was a teenager she took Ecstasy, snorted coke, and inhaled pot as if it were dim sum on a Sunday morning.

So I found myself relieved beyond the effects of a hot stone massage to discover that research on teenage girls has shown that when they play Tetris it has a wonderfully positive effect on their brains.

The Mind Research Network, which appears to be a nonprofit organization that examines brain injury and mental illness, decided to spend three months of its life and donations on watching what happens when teenage girls play Tetris.

The network’s scientists seem giddy about the results: consistent practice on the pleasantly mind-numbing little game seems to have given the girls a thicker cortex, as well as creating more brain efficiency in other parts of their tender gray areas.

Now, I’m not sure that every teenage girl on earth will be excited about having a thicker cortex, but the brain of Dr. Rex Jung, one of the boffins behind this experiment, is veritably bursting with joy.

“We did our Tetris study to see if mental practice increased cortical thickness, a sign of more gray matter,” Dr. Jung said Monday in a press statement.

(Credit: Cc TotalAldo/Flickr)

He continued: “If it did, it could be an explanation for why previous studies have shown that mental practice increases brain efficiency. More gray matter in an area could mean that the area would not need to work as hard during Tetris play.”

Essentially, the excitement engendered by this little game playing seems to revolve around the notion that the brain’s structure is not as fixed as scientists of old had assumed.

However, I feel I need now explore the frisson of doubt that overcomes me every time I read research. You see, this study does not help us discover the actual relationship between a thicker cortex and increased brain efficiency.

How might I know this? Why, because I read the smaller print, in which Dr. Richard Haier, a co-investigator of the Tetrisettes, said: “How a thicker cortex and increased brain efficiency are related remains a mystery.”

You see, the functioning of teenage girls’ brains is, as one has always thought, an utter befuddlement.

While the scientists claim that they used girls in the study because boys tend to have too much video game experience, I am now wondering just one thing: were these Tetrisettes drug-tested?

I know you might think this is far fetched. I know you may think I only meet lovely girls who are strange and tell outlandish tales of teenage drug use.

But, you see, there were only 26 girls in this study. And if I’m to believe that the actions of teenage girls will somehow inform our knowledge of the brain, I want them tested for coke, pot, E, and, definitely, crystal meth.

Interestingly, the study’s notes say that none of the girls was taking a prescription medication. But neither were so many baseball players in the 1990s.

Perhaps my zeal for scientific purity, otherwise known as my skepticism, may be excessive here.

But perhaps it was made excessive by some small print in the study. I know your cortex will become thinner on receiving this information, but the study was funded by “Blue Planet Software (BPS), Inc., the company holding exclusive licensing rights to Tetris”.

Source :

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10322773-71.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Here’s a great Tetris site :

http://www.tetrisfriends.com/